It’s a sunny day in Los Angeles when Bella Hadid and I reunite. My life (along with the rest of the fashion and beauty world) has been influenced by the 29-year-old model and entrepreneur ever since she began modelling a little more than a decade ago. When she went blonde in 2019 at the hands of colourist Jenna Perry, I was inspired to change my hair colour, too (and went to Perry for the colour transformation). I gagged my way through shots of sea moss for a month after she shared that the squishy aquatic plant was a part of her morning routine. By the time we met in person a few years ago, we had both gone back to horseback riding (me, English; her, Western), got into meditation, and found ourselves in Texas for unexpected reasons. Today, I’m back to brunette, she’s recently gone back to blonde, and she’s persuading me to join her in her current vintage fixation.
“Us shopping together would be insane,” she says with a conspiratorial grin. At the top of her current bucket list are the Prada handbags her mother wore throughout her childhood. “She had the most beautiful collection,” she continues. And while her mother, Dutch model Yolanda, may have whittled down that covetable collection since, Prada still has a special place in her heart. “It will always mean high fashion to me.”
Prada and Hadid are having a bit of a moment. Last month, the model walked at the fall 2026 ready-to-wear presentation for the first time. She made up for it in one single show by doing the catwalk circuit four times, her outfit evolving with each turn as a layer was removed. Today, she’s taking another step in her commitment, joining Prada Beauty as the global face of the brand. It goes hand-in-hand with a new launch, the Prada Touch Blush, which comes in eight shades and is smartly shaped like the brand’s triangle logo.
“Blush is about life,” she tells me while swiping her favourite shade, Dahlia, onto my hand. “Sometimes, I wake up in the morning not feeling very fresh or energised, especially when dealing with immune problems and being a workaholic. But putting on a good blush makes me feel a little happier.” In the words of Ina Garten, I joke, if you can’t make your own, store-bought blush is fine. “More than fine when it’s Prada,” she replies.
Happy, really, is the current base level for Hadid. She’s surfing eBay and Depop for some of those Prada bags that she remembers her mom carrying. The California-raised model has also partially relocated to near my hometown of Dallas-Fort Worth to live out her greatest horse girl fantasies. I’m also partially in Texas, where my long-distance fiancé calls home.
“When I first moved to Texas, I just put my hair into two little braids, no make-up on, and went about my day,” she reflects. “But spending time in Texas has shown me so many different kinds of cowgirls. It’s so fun. Some of them have their hair blown out under their cowboy hat with a full face of make-up on and diamonds, others like to have their hair in a messy ponytail and just spend all their time with their horses. I think that I’m right in the middle of both of those.”
Life in Texas is quiet, but comes with personal progression. It’s something, she tells me, she welcomes particularly in the Year of the Horse. “It’s a year of growth and being able to understand yourself better. And for me, trusting my intuition and walking in my truth to see what comes up along the way is really important to me.”
While filming The Beauty (Ryan Murphy’s body-horror series about a drug that can make you beautiful with dire consequences), Hadid also learned something from her character, a supermodel named Ruby. “The entire set taught me how to release control and the obsession with perfectionism,” she says. “My comfort zone is when I’m in control, but I knew I had to get out of my comfort zone, let loose, and let go. Being beautiful or perfect was the lowest thing on this list at the end of a day on set, and that was a really big learning lesson for me. I will have that for the rest of my life.”
Her next dream role is varied—she loved the action of playing Ruby, though wouldn’t turn down a rom-com either—and then there’s the formative horse-girl animated film that comes to mind. “If they do a live-action Spirit movie, sign me up, I’m ready to go.”
And then, one of her happiest experiences of all: Being Khai’s aunt. She recently spent the day at Disney Orlando with Khai and her mom, Hadid’s sister Gigi. She can confirm the Magical Kingdom is, indeed, magical. “Seeing my niece experience life is something that physically changes me,” she tells me. “It brings life to my face, gives me energy. In a metaphorical way, it’s all connected. Life makes me blush, and blush brings me life. And sometimes, that blush is from Prada Beauty.”
This article was first published on Vogue.com.
